00:00At first glance, Newtown looks like a success story.
00:03The satellite city on the north-eastern edge of Kolkata was officially designated a smart
00:09city by the Indian government.
00:12It's one of only 100 across the country.
00:18It's a model for a modern, urban India.
00:26Very different from congested, centuries-old Kolkata.
00:30Newtown is ranked among India's five greenest cities.
00:34The Indian Green Building Council even gave it its highest rating.
00:37Not silver, not gold, but platinum.
00:47Wide, tree-lined roads, electric buses, solar power.
00:53Newtown appears to be doing everything right, but is it?
00:58If we have to talk about factors like the urban heat island, Newtown lost about 60% of its
01:04green cover over the last three decades.
01:06So, it is definitely an impact that we are seeing.
01:10The temperatures are rising, the land surface temperatures are rising.
01:13If India is building lots of townships in the future, there's a lot more which is to be done.
01:19We cannot take Newtown as something to start with.
01:25Yet it all began with so much promise.
01:28Planned in the 1990s, the smart city of Newtown was meant to ease pressure on Kolkata and promote
01:34a more sustainable form of urban living.
01:38Over time, the city attracted major IT companies.
01:42Today, around half a million people live and work here.
01:50There are more than 30 public EV charging stations with more planned.
01:55It's also become a hotspot for young professionals seeking active lifestyles.
02:02The roads in Newtown are very wide.
02:05You can go for a nice Sunday stroll.
02:08There are parks and lots of greenery here.
02:11On Sunday mornings, we rent bikes and ride around.
02:15Eco Park is right here too and there are scenic views along Eco Park Road.
02:19There's also a pond where we can hang out.
02:26Rental bikes can be booked online.
02:29The buses are electric.
02:31But even with this smart transport network, the final stretch home is often a challenge,
02:36especially for older residents.
02:41In Newtown, we depend on rickshaws, especially the older people.
02:45But drivers charge whatever they want, there's no real regulation.
02:49Newtown is a product of an earlier planning model.
02:54So at that time, the focus was more car-centric.
02:59The segregation of land uses was what was in place.
03:03And we were not really focusing on compact, dense, walkable cities.
03:09Nitin Kumar Naat isn't just out for a stroll.
03:12He's a block coordinator, handling day-to-day neighborhood issues, like this faulty electrical
03:18box at a traffic light, which he reports.
03:23Waste management is also monitored block by block.
03:26Newtown generates around 85 tons of waste every day.
03:30As much as possible is recycled.
03:32That starts with household waste segregation.
03:38Leafy greens are grown using organic fertilizer produced from waste.
03:45That's why every building is provided with two containers, one for wet waste and one for dry.
04:07The waste segregation, 100% of it is done at source.
04:10The percentage of the waste to landfills has reduced to 4%.
04:14And it captures 95% of the city's stormwater.
04:19But this platinum green city doesn't always live up to its name.
04:24Newtown has expanded right up to the East Kolkata wetlands, a designated Ramsar site, meaning
04:29it's internationally protected.
04:35A mosaic of fields and fish ponds, the East Kolkata wetlands are often described as the natural
04:41kidneys of Kolkata.
04:44They're the world's largest natural wastewater treatment system, purifying the city's sewage,
04:49while supporting agriculture and fisheries.
04:54But the high-rise buildings of Newtown are moving ever closer to this fragile ecosystem.
05:08To make room for high-rise buildings, land is filled in, often right next to the wetlands.
05:20At the same time, these towers increase pressure on groundwater, air quality and other resources to levels this landscape can
05:32barely sustain.
05:38Newtown was supposed to avoid repeating Kolkata's old planning mistakes.
05:43Yet, in some parts of the East Kolkata wetlands, construction has increased more than tenfold
05:48over the past 30 years.
05:50And the consequences are now being felt in Newtown itself.
05:56Even after just a little rain, this stretch of road floods at the traffic light before the gas station.
06:03The main problem is that the canals around Newtown are not being cleaned or dredged.
06:14For 82-year-old fisherman Umesh Makal, there's much more at stake.
06:18He's spent his entire life working on Captain Berry, one of more than 250 fish ponds that form part of
06:25the East Kolkata wetlands.
06:27Over the years, he's seen both the water and the wetlands change.
06:32Fish production has collapsed, from nearly 1,500 kilos a day 20 years ago to barely 150 today.
06:41Water quality has deteriorated.
06:48Earlier, the water here was just waste water from the city.
06:53But now chemical waste from the industry in the city is getting mixed into it.
06:59And that's polluting the water in the berry ponds.
07:07In Newtown, there's still time to protect what remains.
07:14First, as much construction as possible needs to be removed from wetland areas
07:18to reverse some of the damage that's already been done.
07:22Then we need to establish buffer zones immediately, with clear rules about which activities are permitted and which are not.
07:31It is much better to incorporate green frameworks, sustainable frameworks, while planning a city, than working backward to it.
07:40You know?
07:40So, we need to start by making them dense, compact, walkable, mixed use, climate resilient.
07:47We need to save whatever the ecosystems are, whether they're wetlands, whether they're marshes, as much green cover as possible.
07:55Large water bodies were supposed to be built by 2025 to offset wetland loss.
08:01But only about 5% have been completed.
08:04How Newtown develops from here will determine just how smart and how green it truly is.
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